Packaging and Repatriation of US-origin Sources from India

Over the past decade, terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda have attempted to acquire radiological materials. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, published in 2004, at that time, over two dozen terrorist groups were attempting to gain such asymmetric weaponry and that number can only be assumed to have increased. The former Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, and current Director General Yukiya Amano have both stated that the continued high amount of theft or loss of source material continues to pose a serious threat of radiological terrorism. The Off-Site Source Recovery Project (OSRP) is a project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). It falls under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) tasked with recovering and repatriating US-origin radioactive sources around the world based on national security considerations. GTRI-OSRP has recovered more than 31,500 sources totaling over 899,000 curies (Ci) in the US; over 2,437 sources totaling 4,133 Ci have been repatriated from 20 countries at commercial facilities. This article will discuss two IAEA Category II source packaging and repatriation efforts conducted at commercial facilities near New Delhi and Mumbai; two of the most populous cities in India.